Mumbai, Feb. 24 -- The Congress suffered another humiliating electoral defeat, this time in the municipal corporation elections in 10 cities of Maharashtra, including Mumbai.
Worse, the defeat was inflicted by its principal rivals, the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-the new pole of Indian politics.
Coming as it does in the backdrop of a string of defeats beginning with the 16th general election, it puts the spotlight on the leadership as well as the future of the country's oldest political party.
At the least, the party will have to reconcile to the fact that it is likely to remain out of power for a long time. Especially since the BJP seems to be on the ascendancy in the state, making inroads even into rural areas-simultaneous elections were held to the zilla parishads too.
Factionalism within the party, a disconnect with urban voters and a lack of credible leaders at the state level contributed to the defeat.
Of the 1,268 seats in corporations spread over 10 cities in different regions of Maharashtra, the Congress was winning/leading in only 119 seats till the last update from counting of votes came in at 5.30 pm.
Results from the zilla parishad elections too were uninspiring for the Congress; it ceded strongholds like Sangli, Latur, and Solapur to the BJP and Shiv Sena.
From Mumbai to Akola in Vidarbha to Solapur in South Central Maharashtra to Pune in Western Maharashtra, the Congress suffered setbacks. In Mumbai, it could win only 31 seats, down from its tally of 52 seats in 2012. Mumbai Regional Congress Committee president Sanjay Nirupam sent his resignation to the All India Congress Committee, "owning up moral responsibility for the loss" but not without blaming "other Mumbai Congress leaders for working against the party".
A senior Congress leader from Maharashtra pinned the non-performance of the party on its inability to effect "organisational changes". "Two-and-a-half years have gone by. The party has taken absolutely no corrective measures or made any changes in the state organisation..."
The scale of Congress' loss in the polls can be understood from the fact that in Solapur, hometown of former Maharashtra chief minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, the party could win only 14 of the 44 seats.
"The defeat in Solapur is more worrying for it since Shinde saheb had kind of handed over the reins of this election to his daughter and next-generation Congress leader Praniti Shinde. It means people are not accepting the next generation of Congress leaders too," admitted a Congress leader who is close to Shinde and who did not wish to be named.
Prakash Pawar, head of the department of political science at Shivaji University in Kolhapur, said: "Recovery from this point onwards is extremely difficult if not impossible because the Congress has ignored organisational matters for years and the politicians who oversee the Congress affairs in Maharashtra do not have any big picture vision of politics..."